2210228-1131 EDT
Comments on transients.
A typical home is supplied with an electrical 240 V centered tapped energy source from a pole or pad mounted transformer, or two phases from a 208 V wye source providing two 120 V supplies with a common neutral. In the wye system the phase angle between the two sources is 120 degrees. Whereas in the center tapped source the two phases are 180 degree apart.
An MOV transient limiter is a non-linear load that I have previously described for circuit analysis as ---
two series circuits in parallel, each consists of a voltage source ( the threshold point ). and a resistor and diode in series. The voltage source defines the voltage at which this load changes from basically a no load circuit to an incremental load resistor. By changing the direction of the diode between the two circuits we have one that works on positive half cycles and the other on the negative half cycle. Obviously the battery polarity had to change.
The magnetic limiter works differently. If I take a square loop magnetic material and wind a coil around this core, then the volt time integral is a measure of where core saturation occurs. A very fast rising voltage at the input will cause the core to saturate more quickly, but the voltage rise to saturation will be much greater than if the voltage rise rate is slower. So I am not sure the magnetic limiter is any better than the MOV, just somewhat different mechanisms, and different results depending on rate of rise of voltage.
A circuit that would be better is a diode bridge with a SCR load where there is some algorithm that was used to trigger the SCR. This will provide a very low shunt path when triggered.
A good solution for electronic circuits is to provide an MOV at the load input with a preceding moderate series impedance.
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